For most people it's the characteristic smell of the sea, but for marine biologists dimethyl sulphide (DMS) and similar compounds play a key role in cloud formation and can be used by predators to locate ...

Clouds play a critical role in Earth's climate. Clouds also are the largest source of uncertainty in present climate models, according to the latest report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. ...

From April 2014, a new group will study interstellar molecules and use them to explore the entire star and planet formation process at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics. Newly appointed ...

Scientists recently discovered the source of naturally occurring aerosol particles in Earth's atmosphere that play an important role in cloud formation. The particles in questions are known as 'climate-active ...

A star is formed when a large cloud of gas and dust condenses and eventually becomes so dense that it collapses into a ball of gas, where the pressure heats the matter, creating a glowing gas ball – a star ...

The greater the plant density in a given area, the greater the amount of rainwater that seeps into the ground. This is due to a higher presence of dense roots and organic matter in the soil. Since water is ...

Computer simulations conducted at the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) could help scientists make sense of a recently observed and puzzling wrinkle in one of ...

Sugars are widely known as important sources of energy for all organisms. Now, Virginia Tech researchers have discovered that certain types of sugars, known as polysaccharides, may also control the timing and placement of ...

Swedish, Australian and French researchers present for the first time miraculously preserved musculature of 380 million year old armoured fish discovered in north-west Australia. This research will help scientists ...

(Phys.org) —Gaining control of the ability of mature tissues to generate stem cells is the central medical challenge of our day. From taming cancer, to providing compatible cell banks for replacement organs, ...

As CO2 levels in the Earth's atmosphere top 400 parts per million, options such as storing the greenhouse gas in porous sandstone rock formations found in abundance on the sea floor are of increasing interest. ...

Scientists from ETH Zurich in Switzerland have shown for the first time that brown and white fat cells in a living organism can be converted from one cell type to the other. Their work, using mice as a model organism, provides ...

(Phys.org)—A large multinational team of researchers, led by Markku Kulmala of Finland's University of Helsinki, has for the first time discovered the birth process of a class of aerosols. As they describe ...

When it comes to forming the droplets that make up clouds, a little oily and viscous organic material apparently doesn't matter that much. And that's good news for reducing the uncertainty of climate model predictions.